THEP]LGK.IM TERCENTlNAin' CEI^EBRATION 



AT TOE 



UNJYERSnT OF ILLINOIS, 1920 





Class h ^ ^ 

Book.(t If 
Copyright 1^'^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Place of the Pilgrims 
in American History 

BY 

EVARTS BOUTELL GREENE 

Projessor of History 



The Puritan Pilgrim 

To Them that Sit in the Seats of the Scorners 

BY 

ERNEST BERNBAUM 

Professor of English 



AN ADDRESS AND A POEM FOR THE 

Pilgrim Tercentenary Celebration 
at the University of Illinois 

December 21, 1920 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS 
1921 



G7S 



COPYRIGHT, 192 1 

BY THE University of Illinois 



^/^ /j/'^ 



JUL 25 '2 1 

§CI.A622610 






TABLE OF CONTENTS 

The Puritan Pilgrim to Them that Sit in 
the Seats of the Scorners 7 

The Place of the Pilgrims in American 
History 15 

Program of the Pilgrim Tercentenary 
Celebration at the University of Illi- 
nois 43 



[3 ] 



The PURITAN PILGRIM 

To Them that Sit i?j the Seats of the Scorners 

BT 

ERNEST BERNBAUM 



THE PURITAN PILGRIM 

To Them that Sit in the Seats of the Scorners 




E HAVE LOOSED THE 
JUDGMENT OF SCORNERS, 
YE DEEM US JOYLESS 
AND HARSH 
Obdurate as granite boulders , rigorous as East 

winds of March y 
Icy as Plymouth waters, bleak as the sands of 

Cape Cody 
Self -tortured, and slaves to the letter of a tyran- 
nical God. 

We denied not our grievous transgressions, 

ye who scorn us and turn from our way : 
We searched out our inmost offenses, we 

owned them in clear light of day: 
Not in cloistered recess did we whisper our 

sins, nor belittle and hide; 
In the face of the full congregation we 

humbled our spiritual pride. 



[7] 



Ye deem that our lives were as gloomy as the 

long black nights we abode, 
Rude as our comfortless dwellings, bare as the 

fields that we sowed. 
But ours was the rapture of prophets who 

heard the still voice of God; 
And ours was the joy of the freeman, for 

untithed acres we trod; 
And ours was the gladness of seekers, 

pioneers of the trails of the morrow, 
As we blazed onward paths for our children, 

in the sweat of our temporal sorrow! 
To the East we beheld the great deep, that 

had threatened us all to o'er-whelm, 
By th' inscrutable Lord now upraised as the 

barrier wall of our realm: 
Safeguarded by his dread ocean, we dwelt as 

emparadised, 
Beyond reach of the croziers of prelates, the 

minions of Anti-Christ, 
Escaped from the strength of the sceptre of 

the lords of tyranny. 
Secure in the rights of freemen under laws 

that were made by the free! 
Ye may gather more bountiful harvests on the 

trees that sprang from our roots. 
But 'twas ours to taste the sweet savor of 

liberty's precious first-fruits; 
And not for your flesh-pots of Egypt would 

we barter our inward delight 
As we walked in freedom of conscience in the 

great Jehovah's sight. 

[8] 



Ye deem that we knew not love: ye misname 

what ye glorify — 
The "love" that is lust of the flesh, the "love" 

that is pride of the eye, 
Begotten of revels and laughter, of Merry 

Mount's vanities, 
Imbruting the soul and self-quenched in bitter 

empoisened lees. 
Not in riot and drunkenness, in chambering 

and shame. 
Did we find the true love that sustained us 

through perils we overcame. 
But the love that sublimes all the passions, 

the love heroic and pure, — 
Praise be to God that we knew it! — 

who gave it that we might endure, — 
The love speaking fearless and faithful, 

"Whither thou goest will I go. 
Thy people shall be my people, thy God the 

God that I owe. " 
Our women, in sickness and famine, in terror 

of savage uncouth. 
Wrought with the courage of Judith, the 

single devotion of Ruth. 
Arbutus flowers were our maidens, pale bloom 

of New England springs; 
They were wan with their watching, but 

steadfast as heroines Israel sings. 
For the ears of Philistia's daughters artfully 

frame ye your lay: 

[9] 



We loved with emotion too deep for your 
rhetorician's play: 

Inexpressive we were, stern-visaged; that our 
hearts did glow with love 

Not our words but our deeds shall bear wit- 
ness before its great Author above! 

Ye deem we rejoiced not in beauty: forsake 

ye the grace we adored ? 
Have ye fashioned a nobler beauty than the 

wondrous word of the Lord ? 
We thrilled as He spake through Psalmist and 

Prophet, Apostle and Son; 
Enraptured we saw that His Spirit wrought 

onward what He had begun, — 
The subduing of Chaos by Order, the 

breathing of soul into heart, 
The moulding of real by ideal, the Master 

Artificer's art. 
We exulted as instruments conscious in the 

hands of His glorious will 
Who wrestleth with evil in matter, who labors 

and conquers still; 
Who maketh the clouds His chariot, who 

walketh on wings of the wind, 
W1io inspireth His lowliest servants with 

flaming fire from His mind. 
We knew the joy of awaking in sense- 
imbrued sinner's breast, 

[ 10 ] 



In the darkened mind of the heathen, the 

Hght of salvation's behest. 
Ye have sought out many inventions: do 

they give ye the peace ye implored, 
Or the strength of a faith such as ours in our 

Covenant made with the Lord? 
Who preserved us from seas, foes, and famine, 

who brought us through soul-searching strife, 
To the peace that passeth all knowledge, to 

the hope of eternal life. 

Our generation and yours in the fullness of 

time shall meet: 
Look to yourselves ere we gather before the 

great Judgment Seat: 
O ye that have scornfully mocked us, O ye 

proud minds that have sneered. 
Shall ye hear your sentence in thunder ere ye 

fear the God that we feared? 
But ye, the sons of our spirit, in freedom 

pursuing the good, — 
That may have new revelations vouchsafed 

of His Fatherhood, — 
So ye search God 's mind in your conscience, 

so a vision ye seek and obey. 
From the bourne of salvation we bid ye 

Godspeed on your Pilgrim way! 



[ II ] 



The PLACE of the PILGRIMS 
in AMERICAN HISTORY 

BT 

EVARTS BOUTELL GREENE 



[ 13 ] 



THE PILGRIMS IN AMERICAN 
HISTORY 




kHREE HUNDRED YEARS 

ago a little group of English 
men and women — about 
one hundred in all — whom 
we will call the pilgrims, dis- 
embarked from the ship Mayflower on the 
shore of Plymouth Harbor, Massachu- 
setts, after a stormy voyage of more than 
two months across the Atlantic from Ply- 
mouth, England. Through months of 
terrible hardship, during which half their 
number died, they held on with stubborn 
heroism until they had laid the solid, 
though modest, foundations of anew Eng- 
lish commonwealth. It is a simple story 
but memorable, if for no other reason, as an 
inspiring example of Christian faith and 
courage. Yet that is not the only, or 
the chief, reason why, in this country of 
their descendants, and with scarcely less 
interest in the old home they left behind, 
this anniversary is being observed today. 

[ 15 ] 



It is rather because the heroism of the 
Pilgrims was no isolated achievement, 
because others followed where they blazed 
the trail. 

The commonwealth of the Pilgrims 
was not of course the first planted by- 
Englishmen on American soil. Thirteen 
years ago we celebrated here another 
tercentenary in memory of another group 
of pioneers who began on the James 
River the first of that long series of 
successful colonial experiments which 
made possible the stately fabric of the 
American Union. By 1620, when the 
Pilgrims landed, the success of the James- 
town experiment was already assured. 
That achievement also was bought at a 
heavy cost; the loss of human life, year 
in and year out, for more than a decade, 
was more appalling in Virginia than at 
Plymouth. Some of those earlier ad- 
venturers also endured and, hardened by 
the terrible ordeal, became the nucleus 
of the "Old Dominion." The family, 
the state, and the church took root; 
and in 1619, more than a year before the 
day we celebrate, the first representative 
assembly in America met in the little 
Jamestown Church on the edge of the 
Virginia wilderness. 

[ 16] 



The founding of that first English 
colony may fairly be regarded as a 
national enterprise. The company which 
sent it out was chartered by the King, 
and was at first largely controlled by the 
crown. Among the grantees under the 
first two charters were civil officials of high 
rank; soldiers who had fought for Eng- 
land in the continental wars; influential 
merchant companies of London; and the 
clergy of the national church. The chief 
executive officer of the Virginia Company 
under its second charter was also the 
first governor of the great East India 
Company and a leading figure in several 
other organizations for the development 
of commerce over-seas. The enterprise 
was celebrated by distinguished poets 
and preachers as a great design to chal- 
lenge Spanish monopoly of the New 
World, to carry Christian civilization to 
the wilderness, and plant there, as Ral- 
eigh said, a new "English nation." 

The Virginia Company which gov- 
erned the affairs of that colony was not a 
group of colonists but rather an associa- 
tion of promoters, investors of capital who 
expected others to do the rough work of 
the wilderness. It was these investors, 
first, and afterwards, when their charter 

[ 17 ] 



was revoked, the English crown, which 
could in the last resort approve, or dis- 
approve, whatever policies might be 
adopted by the men on the ground. 
Even when the first representative as- 
sembly was established, it came not 
through the action of the colonists but 
as the gift of the Company in England. 
Again, "the early Virginians did not 
come to build an ideal commonwealth 
but primarily because they were attracted 
by the economic opportunities which the 
New World seemed to offer. In the 
main, their religious and political con- 
victions squared with the traditions of 
their old home. They were loyal to 
king and country. They adjusted them- 
selves easily to a provincial constitution 
in which the royal governor reproduced in 
miniature the prerogatives of the crown. 
They were capable of standing up for 
their rights; but the rights they claimed 
were those secured to English subjects 
by the ancient common law. When 
their representative assembly was formed, 
it asked nothing better than the privileges 
of the English House of Commons. 
By their own choice, as well as by the 
policy of the home government, the 
national church of the mother country 

[ i8 ] 



became also the established church of 
Virginia. It is true that this English 
inheritance was modified in after years, 
in the hard school of frontier life, and 
that later immigration brought in new 
forces of dissent. Nevertheless, for a 
century and a half the civic and religious 
ideals of the Virginia gentry resembled 
closely those of the corresponding class 
in England. 

At first it seemed as if the colo- 
nization of New England might take a 
similar course. Here also were great 
economic attractions, especially the fish- 
eries and the fur-trade, to interest the 
business men of London, Bristol, and 
Plymouth. To exploit these resources, as 
well as those of the south, land and trade 
were given to private corporations, and 
there were ambitious plans for establish- 
ing semi-feudal principalities not unlike 
the proprietary provinces of Maryland 
and Carolina. In the very year in which 
the Pilgrims landed, the Council for New 
England was organized with commercial 
privileges and political authority very 
similar to those enjoyed by the Virginia 
Company. The promoters of this New 
England Company were able men, leaders 
in business and politics; and yet in the 

[ 19] 



end this project, and practically all 
similar projects for New England, failed 
to achieve substantial results. So it came 
about that this region was left free for 
colonization of a very different kind, 
in which actual colonists took the initia- 
tive and kept the control. To use the 
familiar language of our own time, 
colonial New England stood out among 
all the European colonies of that era as 
the peculiar home of "self-determina- 
tion." It is the special distinction of 
the Plymouth Pilgrims that, building 
much better than they knew, they were 
the pioneers in this new type of self- 
reliant, self-determining colonization. 

In sharp contrast to Virginia, the 
pioneer colony of New England was in no 
sense a national undertaking. It had 
no royal charter; all the colonists could 
get from King James was the promise 
to ignore them if they behaved themselves 
properly. The whole enterprise was much 
too small an affair to attract the attention 
of the nation at large, or of its ruling 
class. So an event which is celebrated 
today by two great peoples was almost 
unnoticed by its contemporaries. For 
capital, the Pilgrims had to depend on 
London business men and to get that 

[ 20] 



help they had to accept some unwelcome 
restrictions; but the chief promoters of 
this undertaking were real colonists, not 
investors who remained comfortably at 
home to direct and supervise the work 
at long range. 

More striking still is the fundamental 
difference of aim between these two 
groups of pioneers. Both hoped to make 
a better living in the New World than 
they had found in the old; but, while the 
Virginians were on the whole content 
with those institutions in church and 
state which they inherited from their 
fathers, the New Englanders brought 
with them the spirit of dissent. They 
were indeed still patriotic Englishmen; 
in their famous Mayflower Compact, 
they spoke deferentially of their sovereign 
lord, King James and they were in every 
way less aggressive than their Puritan 
successors of Massachusetts Bay. Yet, 
after all, they did come with the deliber- 
ate purpose of establishing a new society, 
different in some important respects from 
that which they had left behind them. 

The Pilgrims thus became the first 
in a great procession of Europeans, 
exiles by compulsion or by choice, who 
found in America a laboratory of experi- 

[21 ] 



mental sociology. Here in the wide 
spaces of the New World men have tried 
with safety experiments in church and 
state which in an older and more crowded 
society are bound to be far more difficult 
and dangerous. So it came about that 
American society, in its formative years, 
had more than a normal proportion of 
men and women, who were not satisfied 
with established traditions; who did not 
take the existing order for granted, as 
men take the weather or the procession of 
the seasons, but sought to mould society 
in accordance with some new interpre- 
tation of truth. It was this over-repre- 
sentation, if you please, of the dissenting 
temper in our early society which, com- 
bined in varying proportions with the 
economic forces of frontier life, has done 
most to make an American something 
different from a European. 

For two centuries, at least, the most 
influential form of European dissent in 
American life was that body of religious 
thought and feeling which we call Puri- 
tanism. This influence was most strong- 
ly felt in New England, but it was by 
no means confined to that section. Few 
half-truths, for instance, are more mis- 
leading than the popular antithesis of 

[ 22 ] 



New England Puritan and Southern 
Cavalier. The Scotch-Irishman, or the 
Ulster-Scot, impressed on the Upland 
South a Puritan spirit scarcely less strong 
and enduring than that which came to 
America from England by way of Ply- 
mouth Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. 
If, among all the soldiers of our great 
Civil War, we were to choose the man 
who most nearly embodied the fighting 
Puritanism of the early days, the spirit 
of Cromwell's Ironsides, most of us 
would probably select no one of the 
conspicuous Union Generals but that 
great Southern soldier, Stonewall Jackson. 
The Plymouth Pilgrims, then, were only 
the first thin line of skirmishers who 
spied out the land, the little vanguard 
of the great Puritan army. 

What, then, was this Puritanism 
which we find in so many different forms 
from the days of William Bradford and 
John Winthrop to those of Stonewall 
Jackson? Many historians have tried 
their hands on a definition of Puritanism; 
but with astonishingly different and 
generally unsatisfactory results because 
the term is really hard to define. Many 
things commonly called Puritan, includ- 
ing nowadays a moderate respect for the 

[ 23 ] 



Ten Commandments, are not peculiar 
to Puritans. Others are characteristic of 
particular kinds of Puritans, but not of 
all. We may safely begin, however, by 
saying that they were radical Protestants; 
to use a phrase made familiar by Matthew 
Arnold, they stood for the Protestantism 
of the Protestant religion and they had 
little use for the "middle way," chosen 
by the Church of England between the 
Roman communion and the more thor- 
ough-going Protestantism ot Geneva and 
some of the German reformers. 

In this aggressive Protestant spirit, 
Puritans of every kind believed in getting 
away from the time-honored traditions 
of the medieval church to what they 
considered a more completely Biblical 
Christianity. For them the// ;7<^/ author- 
ity in religion was not the clergy, nor 
even the church as a whole, but an 
inspired book, the Bible. In the inter- 
pretation of that Book, they were much 
influenced by certain great teachers of 
continental Europe, notably John Calvin, 
the French reformer and theologian. 
Under the guidance of these teachers, 
they concluded that Biblical Christianity 
required simpler forms of worship than 
those of the Roman and Anglican com- 

[ 24 ] 



munions. The use of art to symbolize 
religious truth seemed to them full of 
danger, likely to obscure rather than to 
reveal spiritual truth; and, though they 
believed in the sacraments of baptism 
and the communion, they laid special 
stress on preaching. The Puritans de- 
cided also that church organization 
needed to be much simplified; they 
found no warrant in the Bible for the 
authority then exercised by the English 
bishops, and some of the radicals wished 
to abolish that office altogether, though 
others were content with lessening its 
powers. Like most Protestants, they 
emphasized the principle of salvation by 
faith, rather than by compliance with 
the rules of the church, and they accepted 
Calvin's doctrine that saving faith came 
only to those who had been divinely 
chosen or "elected." 

The English Puritans of the six- 
teenth and seventeenth century felt 
bound to protest against lax standards 
of morality; they were often excessively 
severe in their judgments of themselves 
and of other people, condemning as 
sinful enjoyments which seemed to others 
quite innocent. This state of mind, how- 
ever, is by no means peculiar to Puritans 

[ 25 ] 



properly so called; it has been character- 
istic of many intensely religious persons, 
regardless of the particular creed they 
have happened to profess. A more dis- 
tinctive characteristic of the English 
Puritans was their insistence on strict 
obedience to Old Testament precepts 
about Sabbath observance. 

Agreeing fairly well in these funda- 
mental matters, the Puritans were much 
divided among themselves in details of 
doctrine, modes of worship, and ideas 
of church government; and out of these 
differences arose in the end a large number 
of sects. At the beginning of the colonial 
era, the most important line of cleavage 
among these people was on the question 
of their relation to the national church. 
These were Puritans of various shades 
who wished to stay in the church and 
try to mould it in accordance with their 
own views, and there were others who 
considered it so hopelessly wrong that 
all Christians should withdraw from it. 
It was this separatist group who became 
the pioneers of Puritan colonization in 
New England and thus, though very few 
in numbers, exercised an important in- 
fluence on those who followed them. 

[ 26 ] 



The distinguishing characteristic of 
the Separatists was their conception of 
the church. They rejected the idea of a 
national establishment and conceived of 
a church rather as an association of the 
true Christian believers living together 
in any particular community, — a care- 
fully sifted group of those who were 
divinely elected to be saved. In place 
of the episcopal system of government, 
these men advocated a "congregational" 
organization in which the minister and 
all other church officers were chosen by 
the local congregation. At the end of 
Elizabeth's reign the Separatist groups 
were few and weak; there were some 
scholars and gentry among them but on 
the whole they came from the less 
influential classes. The government re- 
garded their doctrines as dangerous to 
good order in church and state — almost 
anarchical; they were condemned even 
by many of the Puritans. On the whole, 
they were strongest in the eastern coun- 
ties and in such towns as Norwich where 
there had been a considerable immi- 
gration of radical Protestants from the 
Netherlands. During the early years of 
James I, the Separatists were reinforced by 
a number of clergy and laymen who were 

[ V ] 



disappointed by the King's hostility 
toward Puritan tendencies in the national 
church; but they continued to be a 
small and persecuted group, forced to 
meet in secret, or to take refuge abroad, 
most commonly in Holland where they 
were hospitably received by the Dutch 
Calvinists and formed a few churches of 
their own. 

Among these Separatist groups, one 
will always have a special interest for 
Americans because it included among its 
members the chief teachers of the Pilgrim 
colony. That is the little congregation 
which, by a curious chance, was accus- 
tomed to meet in the Manorhouse of the 
Archbishop of York at Scrooby, in 
Nottinghamshire. Scrooby was then a 
post station of some importance on the 
great Northern road from London and 
the man in charge was William Brewster, 
a Cambridge University graduate, who in 
the service of one of Elizabeth's ministers 
had seen something of life at court and 
also traveled abroad. On his retire- 
ment to the country, Brewster threw 
himself heartily into the Separatist move- 
ment and was undoubtedly the mainstay 
of the Scrooby congregation. At first 
this little group depended for their 

[ 28 ] 



religious teaching principally on Church 
of England clergy of Puritan leanings; 
but they were finally joined by a man of 
real intellectual distinction who became 
their pastor. This was John Robinson, 
sometime fellow of Cambridge Univer- 
sity, whose heretical opinions had com- 
pelled him to give up his plans for a 
career, either in the University or in the 
church. Instead he became a prolific 
and able writer on Calvinistic theology 
and the congregational theory of church 
government. Most of the other members 
of this congregation were simple country 
people with little or no education; but 
among them there was one young fellow, 
recently won over to the Separatist 
teaching, who was destined to become 
the chief leader of the Pilgrim colony, 
and also its historian. 

Bradford's History of Plymouth 
Plantation furnishes the kernel about 
which has been gathered the little that 
we know about the Scrooby congregation. 
For many people, there is little suggestion 
of romance about historical sources, but 
the story of this Pilgrim manuscript may 
fairly be called romantic. Bradford 
began writing it about ten years after the 
landing at Plymouth and continued it 

[ 29 ] 



at odd times thereafter in the quiet 
intervals of his busy life. When he 
died, the book was still in manuscript 
and it remained unprinted for about two 
hundred years. It was, however, used 
by several of the early New England 
writers, including Thomas Hutchinson, 
the loyalist governor and historian of 
Massachusetts. In 1774, a few years 
after Hutchinson published his own nar- 
rative, he sailed away to England, never 
to return. By coincidence, or otherwise, 
the Bradford manuscript also disappeared 
and about seventy years passed betore 
it was rediscovered. Then by a strange 
irony of fate, it turned up in the library 
of the Bishop of London. The irony is 
heightened if we remember that the 
particular bishop who governed the dio- 
cese of London when Bradford was 
working at the earlier chapters of his 
history was William Laud, the arch- 
enemy of Puritanism in all its torms. 

Fortunately, time has softened the 
mutual animosities of churchman and 
Puritan, and so when the American 
Embassy in London, at the instance ot 
Senator George F. Hoar, asked for the 
return of the manuscript to the State ot 
Massachusetts, the request met with a 

[30 ] 



cordial response from the authorities in 
state and church. Some red tape had to 
be cut; but in 1897 the manuscript was 
brought back to Massachusetts and de- 
posited in the State House in Boston. 
To those of us who are students of history, 
it is especially pleasant to remember that 
the Bishop of London who consummated 
this notable act of restitution and inter- 
national courtesy between the two Eng- 
lish-speaking nations was Mandell 
Creighton, himself one of the greatest of 
modern English historians. 

It is a matter of some dispute among 
recent writers just how much definite 
persecution this particular group of Sepa- 
ratists actually suffered at the hands of 
the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. 
It is enough to know that life was made 
uncomfortable for them in many ways; 
and so like others of their kind they took 
refuge in Holland, settling finally in the 
city of Leyden. There they engaged in 
various trades and industries while their 
pastor, John Robinson, became a member 
of the Leyden University and took part 
in the theological controversies of the 
time. 

The Pilgrims soon realized, however, 
that they would not long be able to pre- 

[ 31 ] 



serve their separate community life, 
their English nationality, and their dis- 
tinctive religious ideals. It was not eas)% 
either, to make a satisfactory living 
under these conditions. To all these 
trials there was presently added the 
disturbing prospect of a reopening of the 
war between the Dutch and the Span- 
iards. So it was not strange that the 
thoughts of the Pilgrims should turn 
more and more to the New World as a 
place where they might begin a new life 
under more favorable conditions. They 
hoped, also, to use the words of one of 
their leaders, that they might lay a 
foundation "for the propagating and 
advancing the gospell of the Kingdom of 
Christ in this remote part of the world; 
yea though they should be, but even as 
stepping stones, unto others for the 
performing of so great a work." The 
decision to go to America was made only 
after much debate in which the hardships 
and dangers of the enterprise were pointed 
out; but the braver spirits insisted that 
**all great and honorable actions were 
accompanied with great difficulties," and 
must be "enterprised and overcome with 
answerable courages." 

[323 



Some difficult business problems had 
to be solved before the project could be 
carried into effect. For the land on 
which the settlement was to be made, 
the "Pilgrims" turned to the Virginia 
Company which, under the leadership of 
Sir Edwin Sandys, wanted settlers and 
was not unfriendly to the Puritans. This 
they finally secured and their next task 
was to reach an understanding with the 
English government. In the effort to 
secure the King's approval, they took 
pains to declare their loyalty to the 
Crown, and stated their religious opinions 
in such a way as to cause the least 
possible offence. They were so far suc- 
cessful that James I agreed to "connive 
at them" as long as they behaved 
peaceably. A most serious problem was 
that of getting capital and it was finally 
solved by a partnership between the 
Pilgrims and a group of London business 
men. As in the case of Virginia, a 
joint stock company was formed with 
shares divided between the emigrants 
and the London partners. A Virginia 
precedent was followed also in setting 
up for the first seven years a communistic 
system in which all the land was held 
and worked for the company. 

[33] 



Finally all these difficulties were 
overcome and on September 6, 1620, the 
Mayflower sailed from Plymouth. Its 
company did not coincide exactly with 
the Leyden congregation, some of whom 
were left behind including Robinson 
himself; some of the rest were Separa- 
tists also, but others were merely employ- 
ees of the company. After a stormy 
voyage of more than two months the 
Mayflower made land in what is now 
Provincetown harbor, on Cape Cod; 
another month passed before they finally 
selected as the place of their settlement 
the harbor of Plymouth. December was 
a bad season for beginning a new settle- 
ment on the New England coast and for 
the first year the death rate of the 
Plymouth people was comparable with 
that at Jamestown. The Pilgrims fortu- 
nately established with some of their 
Indian neighbors, friendly relations which 
were maintained for more than fifty 
years and as compared with Virginia, the 
period of extreme hardship was short; 
though there was a scarcity of food for 
some time, the worst was over by the end 
of the first year. 

Here at Plymouth, the Pilgrims were 
outside the jurisdiction of the Virginia 

[ 34 ] 



Compan}^, and simply squatters on land 
which now belonged to the. Council for 
New England. With the help of influen- 
tial friends, however, they secured in 
162 1 a grant from the Council. In 1630 
this was enlarged in favor of some of 
the principal settlers; and subsequently 
transferred by the latter to the colony as 
a whole. After a few years of unsatis- 
factory experience the communistic plan 
was abandoned and the land was allotted 
to individuals, first temporarily and then 
permanently. The colonists were also 
able before long to buy out the London 
partners and thus secure complete control 
of their own business afl^airs. Under 
these conditions, the colony of "New 
Plymouth," as it was commonly called, 
developed into a community of small 
farmers with some interest in the fisheries 
and a fairly prosperous trade in furs, not 
only with the Indians in their immediate 
neighborhood but in places as far away 
as the Maine coast and the Connecticut 
Valley. 

The political status of Plymouth was 
always precarious; the colonists never 
received a_ charter from the King, and 
the Council for New England probably 
had no right to authorize their govern- 

[ 35 ] 



merit. Left as they were without any 
strictly legal authority, they proceeded 
to organize a practically republican sys- 
tem. The famous Mayflower Compact 
which they adopted just before landing 
was not a constitution, but simply an 
agreement to abide by the will of the 
majority. For the business of a small 
community like this only the simplest 
kind of organization was necessary and 
that was all they had. They chose a 
governor every year to handle some neces- 
sary business and represent them in their 
relations with the outside world; later as 
the business developed, assistants were 
similarly elected. Necessary regulations 
or laws were made by the settlers at a 
general meeting. For a time the town of 
Plymouth and the colony of New Ply- 
mouth were practically identical; but as 
new towns were established the general 
assembly of all the freemen was replaced 
by a gathering of representatives from 
the towns. Much of the success of this 
simple but practical government was 
doubtless due to its governor, William 
Bradford, who was first chosen shortly 
after the landing and re-elected year after 
year. He was not only an efficient 
leader, but something of a scholar as 

[36] 



well; his history of the colony is likely 
always to stand as one of the classics of 
early American literature. 

The Pilgrims were now also free to 
carry out their ideals of religious worship 
and church government. The congre- 
gational organization which they estab- 
lished for church affairs embodied the 
same principle of democratic self-govern- 
ment as the civil order which they built 
upon the Mayflower Compact and had a 
marked influence upon the later Puritan 
colonies. In this as in other respects, 
Plymouth is important primarily as the 
pioneer in a new movement. Always a 
small and comparatively poor community, 
it was soon overshadowed, and finally 
annexed by the younger and more pros- 
perous Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
Nevertheless, the Pilgrims will always be 
remembered as having pointed the way 
which was followed by others to far 
greater achievements; they had truly 
been "as stepping stones unto others." 

If the Pilgrims were forerunners, 
what of those who came after them, who 
followed the path which they had pointed 
out? Nine years after the founding of 
Plymouth, there began the great Puritan 
migration to Massachusetts, on a far 

[ 27 :\ 



larger scale than any previous movement 
of Englishmen to the New World. 
The leaders of this migration were Puri- 
tans of a very different type from the 
obscure Separatists of Scrooby and Ley- 
den. They were members of a great 
national party some of whom fought the 
battle of parliamentary government and 
the Puritan faith in England, while others 
saw their best hope for the realization of 
their ideals in the planting of new com- 
monwealths across the sea. Until lately 
these men had hoped against hope to 
Puritanize the English church of which 
they were still members; some as laymen, 
others as clergy. By this time, however, 
the tide was running strongly against 
them. 

To the average Puritan of 1629, 
the European prospect seemed very black 
for Protestantism in general, and for his 
own kind of Protestantism in particular. 
In England, especially, the enemies of 
the Puritans under the leadership of 
William Laud were apparently carrying 
everything before them. So it seemed 
to many men that the best way to prepare 
for a brighter day was to leave Europe 
to its fate for the present and try to 
build up in America a great ** bulwark," 

[ 38] 



as they said, "against Anti-Christ." 
They were not concerned about the 
theory of religious liberty in the modern 
sense; most of them did not pretend to 
be. Indeed the Puritans complained 
that the Stuart monarchy was not suffi- 
ciently strenuous in its prosecution of 
Catholics and they were quick to de- 
nounce Arminian heresies in the clergy 
of the national church. What they set 
out to do was not to establish an asylum 
for dissenters in general, but to conduct 
in their New England laboratory a 
great experiment in church and state. 
First and foremost they aimed to estab- 
lish a "Bible Commonwealth," a theo- 
cratic republic in which the will of God 
as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures 
should be the primary guide, taking 
precedence even over the ancient common 
law. 

In some way, never yet fully ex- 
plained, this radical experiment was 
carried on under cover of a royal charter, 
ostensibly designed to facilitate the same 
kind of colony planting as that in Virginia. 
It happened, however, that nothing in 
the charter fixed the head office of the 
company in England and so the charter 
of a commercial corporation was trans- 

[39 ] 



formed into the constitution of a prac- 
tically republican state. The Civil Wars 
in England presently kept the Mother 
Country too busy to check these irregular 
proceedings and so, for half a century, 
the great Puritan experiment was worked 
out with a minimum of interference. 
Church and state were closely united; 
church membership became a qualifi- 
cation for voting; dissenters were 
whipped, banished, and in a very few 
cases hanged for persistently returning 
to a colony where their presence was 
disturbing. The Massachusetts attitude 
in this matter was not unlike that of a 
physicist trying to protect delicate instru- 
ments in his laboratory from complicating 
lights or sounds. 

Unfortunately for the Puritan theo- 
cracy, the spirit of dissent which they 
themselves had set in motion proved too 
strong for them. It was just as im- 
possible for them to set limits to this 
spirit, as it was for King Canute to stay 
the waves of the sea. Dissenters and 
exiles themselves, they sent out other 
dissenters and exiles to plant new colonies, 
each working on some distinctive prin- 
ciple: Connecticut founded on a slightly 
more democratic theory; New Haven, 

[ 40 ] 



seeking a theocracy more rigid even than 
that of Massachusetts; Roger Williams, 
trying out his new-fangled idea of abso- 
lute divorce between church and state. 
With the exception of Williams none of 
these people, not even the Pilgrims them- 
selves, stood for full religious liberty; 
but the outcome of the whole was varia- 
tion; and variation, in the end, made for 
liberty. 

One final word and I am done. 
Puritanism has surely much to answer 
for In its attempt to impose ideals by 
force upon the individual conscience. 
Even In the field of civil government, 
their theories had in them more of aris- 
tocracy than of true democracy. Yet 
it was in the Puritan colonies, with all 
their limitations, more than anywhere 
else that American communities first 
learned to govern themselves without the 
restraints of authority Imposed from 
without. In Massachusetts, the settlers 
had the great advantage of legal support 
In a royal charter. Everywhere else — 
in Plymouth, Providence Plantations, 
Connecticut, and New Haven, self- 
government began without this external 
support. In a "plantation" covenant by 
which freemen, finding themselves out- 

[ 41 ] 



side any recognized jurisdiction, created 
a new jurisdiction for themselves, founded 
on common consent. So, when the New 
Englanders read in Locke 's famous essay 
that all just government rested on the 
social compact, the doctrine was for them 
no mere theory; it corresponded to 
easily verified facts in their own ex- 
perience. 

It is this capacity for landing on 
their feet politically, so to speak, which 
has more than anything else contributed 
to make the English a great colonizing 
people and which has perhaps nowhere 
been more strikingly developed than 
among the Puritan colonists and their 
descendants. It is that quality, com- 
bined with the stubborn idealism of the 
Puritans, on which Amercia must count 
in generous measure as she faces the 
new problems of a time that tries men *s 
souls. 



[42 ] 



The CONVOCATION PROGRAM 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
CONVOCATION 

PILGRIM TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION 




THE 


AUDITORIUM 


TUESDAY - 


DECEMBER 21 - 1920 - 7:30 P. M. 



"After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, 
provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, 
and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked 
after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity." 

— New England" t Firit-Fruiti {I64J) 



PRESIDENT DAVID KINLEY, LL.D., Presiding 



ORGAN PRELUDE— Finlandia SiMius 

Mr. Lloyd Morey, Organist 

HYMN — ^O God, beneath thy guiding hand . Leonard Bacon 
(Tune: Duke Street) 

O God; beneath thy guiding hand 

Our exiled fathers crossed the sea; 
And when they trod the wintry strand, 

With prayer and psalm they worshipped thee. 

Thou heardst, well pleased, the song, the prayer: 
Thy blessing came, and still its power 

Shall onward through the ages bear 
The memory of that holy hour. 

Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God, 
Came with those exiles o'er the waves; 

And where their pilgrim feet have trod. 

The God they trusted guards their graves. 



ADDRESS — The Place of the Pilgrims in American History 
Prof. Evarts B. Greene 



POEM— The Puritan Pilgrim to Them that Sit in the Seats 
of the Scorners 

Prof. Ernest Bernbaum 



HYMN — America the Beautiful . Katherine Lee Bates 
(Tune: Materno) 



O beautiful for spacious skies, 

For ambe.r waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 

Above the fruited plain! 
America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea: 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 

Whose stern impassioned stress 
A thouroughfare for freedom beat 

Across the wilderness: 
America! America! 

God mend thine every Haw, 
Confirm thy soul in self-control, 

Thy liberty in law: 

O beautiful for heroes proved 

In liberating strife, 
Who more than self their country loved. 

And mercy more than life! 
America! America! 

May God thy gold refine 
Till all success be nobleness 

And every gain divine! 

O beautiful for patriot dream 

That sees beyond the years 
Thine alabaster cities gleam 

Undimmed by human tears! 
America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea! 



ORGAN POSTLUDE— Anno Domini 1620 MacDowell 

Mr. Lloyd Morey, Organist 



COLONIAL EXHIBIT 

Friends of the University, under the leadership 
of a committee consisting of Mr. and Mrs. E. H. 
Waldo, Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Baldwin, Mr. and Mrs. 
Morgan Brooks, and Mr. F. C. Baker, have gather- 
ed a loan collection illustrating the domestic arts 
and culture of Colonial and Revolutionary times, 
and including antique furniture, rugs, household 
utensils, china, wearing apparel, books, letters, etc. 
The collection will continue on exhibit in the 
National History Museum mornings and after- 
noons until December twenty-third. 



Committee on the Pilgrhn Tercentenary 
Ernest Bernbaum 
Laurence M. Larson 
Henry B. Ward, Chairman 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 069 185 9 





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